While this blog is usually about game announcers, this entry is about professional soccer league leadership instead. The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) Director of Officials, David Simmons, wrote a document called the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual in 2003. It contained needed information for referees assigned to work NPSL games. It also contained numerous ambiguities and some redundancies, omitted some important topics, and is not well organized. In fact it is written more like an informal memorandum than a permanent formal document. I repeatedly provide David Simmons with corrections and additions to the manual but very little was changed. Finally I gave up and wrote a replacement for the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual. I named it the “Unofficial Guide to Refereeing NPSL Games” including the term “unofficial” because I wrote it on my own initiative; I was not commissioned by NPSL to write it, although the NPSL Commissioner, Dan Trainor, was aware of my efforts. Regardless, it contains many clarifications of the ambiguities that are in the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual plus additional important information that previously could only be found in the NPSL By-laws –
not conveniently accessible to referees. It is also organized in a more usable manner and adds two appendices on the duties and activities of fourth officials and referee liaisons. The Unofficial Guide to Refereeing NPSL Games is a complete replacement for the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual, except for Addendum B, which lists all of the local NPSL referee assignors across the country (which should be in a separate annual publication and not in a procedures manual).
Follow the links under NPSL Related Documents on the right side of this web page to retrieve a copy of the Unofficial Guide to Refereeing NPSL Games and other NPSL documents. The other documents are standard NPSL documents except the Referee Stat Report, which is an MS Word form that allows one to complete it electronically – not just manually on paper, which is what one must do with the document from NPSL. These documents should be all of the NPSL-specific procedures and forms that you need to prepare for and work NPSL matches. The box score form is not really needed by referees, but is posted here for convenience.
Do trust me. With attention to detail and completeness, I have provided you more of what you need than what David Simmons, NPSL Director of Officials, has provided. Perhaps eventually NPSL will update their documentation, but for now use the documents here.
Who am I? My name is on the front cover of the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual. I wrote
Addendum A of the NPSL Referee Procedures Manual (Appendix A in the Unofficial Guide to Refereeing NPSL Games).
